A stay at home Dad tries to keep up

I have been very hesitant to post regarding our cross country move as it still feels very “other-worldly” we have not landed in our new home yet, currently interloping for the summer in Bangor, Maine.

Shall I digress? A bit, perhaps.

We decided after what feels like years of deliberation to move our small and lovely colony to Maine, the homeland for mom and a place of endless excitement.

So, we did it and it has all gone exactly according to our plan thus far and the kids seem completely on board, but there is a part of it that feels unfinished, I keep waiting for the other “shoe to drop”. My imagination has images of weeping and wailing children and complaining and thunderous appropriations on why oh why are we in Maine?

But what I see is this:

It is unfinished yes, we still have a few weeks to go before we move into our new home. For the last six weeks our entire life’s belongings have been sitting in a storage locker a few miles away, an infinite distance for all of us. Everybody wants some stability, some concrete reminder of our lives as we left them. A particular stuffed animal, Dad’s sushi, a backup for my computer, the list is varied and long in each our our minds.

I know we will get there and soon, and I truly wonder what it will be like to reflect back on this time, but for now I am truly thankful for how tightly knit we are as a family.

This past season of Little League this year I watched many times as Luke struck out and would walk away form the plate with a smile or a shrug.

He also hit plenty of singles, doubles, triples and home runs, but the strike outs were of specific interest, why?

Many of the kids have really strong reactions to striking out, throwing helmets and crying with the most anguished looks on their faces. I totally get it, but was always interested in Luke’s laissez-faire attitude.

After the last game I made a comment about one of his team mates and how frustrated and mad he was over a strike out.

Luke said:

“I feel like crying sometimes after striking out”

pause

“But I decided it was better to go back to the dug out, take a deep breath and put myself back together again”

I told him I thought that was a good plan.

In a nutshell this may be the best part of what makes Luke such a confident person. He can cray all he wants, that is totally fine and supported by us, but what I love hearing was that he really thought about the feelings and found a way that works better for him, and in my opinion better for everyone.

We got these great 300 piece puzzles around Christmas of 2017. We enjoyed the first one so much that we got a second one.

When we finished the first one there was one piece missing, never found it

UNTIL…

We started packing to move to and we found the last piece of the first puzzle,

but our story does not end there.

While packing up the green room (our play room) in his haste, Daddy is not sure which of the puzzle boxes he put the missing piece in. Therefore, when you uncover this note some rainy day in Maine when it is time to build the puzzles again, I would advise being ware of this interesting development.

This morning while making breakfast I pulled out a frozen 1 quart tub of yogurt. I mumbled to myself:

“Geez, that’s odd, what is going on with the fridge?”

Luke perked up and said, “what did you say?”

I explained that for a few weeks a lot of things in the fridge have been freezing inexplicably. I then went to the controls and noticed the fridge was set to 33 degrees, to which I further expressed my disbelief.

Luke: “Oh, I did that”

I told him next time if he could please let me know if he wants to change the temperature on the fridge, he said sure.

The bottom line is that I was secretly really happy that he had done it, it is just the kind of inquisitive nature that I cherish, frozen lemons, ketchup and yogurt be gone!

We didn’t try to make her be this way, I didn’t notice any moment where rainbows, unicorns, fairies or glitter was forced upon Lily in any way, yet there it is. She is a person who loves love. Loves rainbows and glitter and fairies and love.

There could be nothing more calming and gentle and fulfilling than to listen to Lily talk about love, rainbows, unicorns, and glittery things, it is perfection in life.

I hope that one day she will be in a position to share and endow other people with such a genuinely giving countenance.